Peace starts Here

The air is warming up. Even the ocean breeze can't stop the heat of the sun at 9 degrees over the equator. I'm sitting behind a computer with an improvised Internet connection. A cable goes through the wall up to the only place where there's some network coverage. There a mobile phone is hanging on a leach to get in the signal. It is a relatively new surfer all-in holiday business opened by y German couple 4 months ago. Chickens walk freely here, the rooster yells his lungs out and a parot up in the trees was copying my waterdrop sounds in a very funny attempt. I had to jump a ride to get here. The misfortune of others was my luck. They had their passports stolen and got a lift to Santiago by jeep. That jeep stopped in front of my breakfast up on the hill in Surfer's Paradise, Santa Catalina and I yelled and got on board.

They will need 4 weeks of waiting time and it drew a line through their plans of visiting friends in Costa Rica. (In advance for those that actually read some of this blog, I must appologize for my bad English, the more I handle Spanish, the worse my English gets.)

When I close my eyes I see waves rolling in. Sometimes just by sitting in a chair I feel the wave underneath throwing me up and then my feet land back on the ground. The feeling of jumpin over a wave with your surfboard in front of you is this wavy feeling that has integrated itself in my normal sitting perceptions, for now. I enjoy it.

I've been exploring the definition of surfing small waves in a beginner beachbreak that nonetheless produces waves almost as big as a good day on a reef break. With that experience I get the exploration of the definition of wipeout inclusided, free of charge. Howevern not entirely free. All has its price they say. Yesterday the point of the board caught the wave before anything else did and I wiped out into the wave feeling as if I were inside a washing machine and then when I got to the surface again, the next wave got me already. It broke just on my head and my board's fin found my ankle. After having left the water and having crossed the hot as hell beach to our stuff my travel companion of the day pointed at my ankle. It was bleading.

When I went back out into the water later I though about blood atracting sharks, but such a minor bruise shouldn't cause any attraction of 'em. They have plenty of fish to eat as demonstrated the specimen of 800 kilos they caught the other day. So there are sharks here, but so well fed, they would never go for surfers. 5 or 6 surfers worldwide a year; die by shark attacks. Where over 150 people die worldwide; by a falling coconut coming down a palmtree. The beach is way more dangerous than the ocean, or so it seems. So here's the moral of this short paragraph: If you are visiting foreign soils and looking for shade under a palm tree, check for the chance of falling objects like coconuts first.

Yesterday morning started out so fine. After breakfast Chris (a German guy we met net to the busstop) and myself took two boards (a shortboard and a funboard) and walked down to the beach. An English girl who's boyfriend had gone to the reef joined us. We dropped our stuff and walked into the ocean. The water was as warm as our European swimmingpool water, say 23 to 28 degrees celcius and the sand is woven in a wave like pattern; a crab swam by. Wow, luckily it didn't feel like grabbing my leg while passing through.

The tide is perfect for forming smaller ridable waves and I decide to ride a wave for Obama, since it is his inauguration day and all. The exclamation of his name feels like a warrior's attack and in full clarity and awakeness, while screaming still I push myself up and ride that wave for a good 15 seconds before I willingly fall back in the watter, content. That was the best wave I got all day.

The rest of the day is filled with resting and reading in the shade or creaming in my body time after time. When it's dark we order food at our spot enjoying a salty meal on top of a point with great views and stunning sunsets. a surfer magazine writes about actions of surfers as activists gettting camera's and publicity against whaling and killing dolphins in Japan. It moved me to see how some people act upon bad stuff and try to defend those that cannot defend themselves. Where others make business out of destroying animals that even are known to protect humans from shark attacks.

When I arrived a few days before at Playa las Lajas there were almost no lights and we could spot the inmensity of the staryy sky above us. So many! And we robbed ourselves of that beautiful sight in so many places we now call civilized. No wonder we lost and are still losing the connection to ourselves and the universe missing out on a simple fact of being able to see the stars and the 'via galactica'. The only one we do see is a blue and white wrapping of a candybar. Couldn't we decide, one country at a time to start small to introduce a streetlight free weekend? Make it christmass maybe. Everybody is with family and friends and we have all these beautiful christmas trees and lights everywhere and we pull the plug on all streetlanterns and neon signs. For only two or three nights a year, we can experience the beauty of the stars around us. We can sit in blankets and tell stories while we drink hot chocolate, tea and glühwein, no? Is it truly naíve to think in that manner? That we could make such a change happen? Or is it part of the everysounding humming sound of our 'culture' that makes us label such thoughts as naíve or silly?

Before Playa las Lajas Nina and me decided we would stay at least one night at the isle of Bocas del Toro. What a crazy place full of tourists. I felt more like walking on a European Festival than being an an island in the Carribean. I met an Israelic girl that thought I was messing with her and I was actually Israeli myself. `Sababa?` `Sababa.` 'Larutz meal lamichsholim.' I said; which is what the army sergeants scream at their soldiers in training doing the obstacle run. It means: You have to go/run over the obstacles. Which applies to life just as it applies on the stormrun. Then when I told her my name she said: that's an Israeli name. She was very pretty and we exchanged enough smiles to see that the apreciation of being was mutual. when she left the premises later that day and I bumbed into her and her two american friends on the street she said godbye with the words: 'see you in Israel.' and we smiled to one another for la penúltima vez. I write penúltima, because it is tradition not to say 'última' or last, because that could mean your very last time. So forelast it is then.

In that same hostel there's a French guy who's name is Camille. I think I was the first person he saw that day because I was sitting next to his bed when he woke up. I told him: you must be French and he confirmed and that was the beginning of meeting an individual who almost instantly became a friend. He was sitting downstairs with his laptop, suposingly to be studying agriculture in Central America - Panamá (kinda hard being on an island where people get drunk or even coked up and sometimes laid, around you all the time) After I told him the worst French I knew, which I had learned from my ex flatmate in Berlin he laughed hard and I laughed with him and we shared the rest of the day making funny remarks and meeting new people. (For those that were interested in the French, it is really really bad, Alors Gaselle, je te vais troncher, on y va, ou quoi?) It wasn't so much the faul language that connected us but the way we found laughter in knowing the same obscenity and some laughs later, just having this genreal feeling fo having bonded at least for the day. And more than a day I did't last, not yet anyway. I was 'bound' to meet skinny again at the pier the next day at 07:00 a.m. off to take the boat back to Almirante and make out for Playa las Lajas. The night before we made a meal together and in my goodbye's I saluted Geerd, the girls from conneticut with whom a glancing play was held (She looks at me, I glace back, we come on to one another to then disappear again) and to Heather,
norway's national flower from New York, Queens that blew me a kiss stating she fancied me. I chose a good night rest instead and found peace in that choice.

Now here's what I found on the wall in that hostel:

DOUBT IS THE WATERFALL
THAT SUBSTITUTES INTUITION
FOR SPECTACULAR VIEWS
NATURE'S PERFECTION
MISSING SOMETHING
YOU.

COMFORT IS THE
LISTENER
THAT HARDLY MOVES
TALKS OF SALVATION
IN RHETORIC
CONFUSED
DIALOGUES
SOLILOQUIES
MANTRAS.

FEAR IS THE RAPIST
WHO PRETENDS TO BE
A BURGLAR
STEALING THE
SMALLEST TOKENS
OF LOVE
AT NIGHT
TO COVER
THE MORE HEINOUS CRIME
OR TAINTING PASSION
WITH
POWER.

GUILTY IS THE PRIEST
WHO SITS ATOP
OF CONTRADICTIONS
OF IMPOSSIBLE TRUTHS
PARADED AS ANCIENT LAWS
GERMINATING
SUSPICION
IN INACCESIBLE CORNERS
OF FAITH
HOPING TO BE OVERLOOKED
BYPASSED
BY POINTING
THE FINGER
AT
ANOTHER




and also:


SANITY IS THE VANITY
DESTROYING HUMANITY
LET GO
OF WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE
AND CREATE YOUR OWN REALITY


or:

PEACE STARTS HERE
witha drawing of a person radiating light
and the words
do good where you can
do good when you can
and some more I don't remember in their totality.


I promise I will upload pictures to this post later, for now the Internet is so slow, I wonder if I even can get these words up here...

Now it's back hitchhiking to Santa Catalina and enjoy a last day of reading a book in a hamok